Free Weekly Digest/Bonus WW2 Podcast
Herewith your free weekly digest from everything that’s been going on in my history world.
First off, announcement: WE’RE DOING IT AGAIN. You can join Kate Jamieson and I for our bestselling tour of Portsmouth on 12th October. You tour the Mary Rose with me, have lunch, then tour HMS Victory with Kate before we recreate Nelson’s last walk on English soil and adjourn to the pub for a toast. Book now via:
Secondly, I sat down this week with Sword Beach author and Lowlander super nerd Andy Achieson to talk about the upcoming anniversary of operations at Walcheren; why we should pay more attention to this genuinely forgotten aspect of WW2 and how you can join us all this autumn to walk the ground. Did we mention there’s a tear-jerker dog story involved?
You can listen to us chat about this here:
This Week
I found a book for 50p called Great Speeches by Native Americans, compiled by Bob Blaisdell about 20 years ago. He says he did so, ‘to give readers of the twenty-first century an extensive appreciation of Native American oratory and some understanding of the history of America through the perspectives of its indigenous peoples.’ I thought this was a noble idea, and so I’ve picked out a few to share with you, a combination of 'outrage, wonder, exhortation, per-suasion, sadness, pity, reflection, and meditation.’
…I thought this next speech was really interesting. I mentioned disease earlier. The impact of European illnesses proved devastating for indigenous Americans. 90% of the Mandans died as a result of Smallpox. The is what Chief Four Bears, himself dying of the disease, had to say in 1837:
‘My friends one and all, listen to what I have to say. Ever since I can remember, I have loved the whites. I have lived with them ever since I was a boy, and to the best of my knowledge, I have never wronged a white man. On the contrary, I have always protected them from the insults of others, which they cannot deny. The Four Bears never saw a white man hungry, but what he gave him to eat, drink, and a buffalo skin to sleep on, in time of need. I was always ready to die for them, which they cannot deny. I have done everything that a red skin could do for them, and how have they repaid it! With ingratitude! I have never called a white man a dog, but today, I do pronounce them to be a set of black hearted dogs. They have deceived me. Them that I always considered as brothers have turned out to be my worst enemies. I have been in many battles, and often wounded, but the wounds of my enemies I exhalt in. But today I am wounded, and by whom? By those same white dogs that I have always considered, and treated as brothers.
I do not fear death, my friends. You know it, but to die with my face rotten, that even the wolves will shrink with horror at seeing me, and say to themselves, that is The Four Bears, the friend of the whites.
Listen well what I have to say, as it will be the last time you will hear me. Think of your wives, children, brothers, sisters, friends, and in tact all that you hold dear-are all dead, or dying, with their faces all rot-ten, caused by those dogs the whites? Think of all that, my friends, and rise all together and not leave one of them alive. The Four Bears will act his part.’
Chief Sitting Bull knew how to string a speech together with poise and eloquence. This is how he articulated his feelings about trying to live side by side with the white man by 1875:
‘…Hear me, friends! We have now to deal with another people, small and feeble when our forefathers first met with them, but now great and overbearing. Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possessions is a disease in them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not! They have a religion in which the poor worship, but the rich will not! They even take tithes of the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule.
They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbours away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse. They compel her to produce out of season, and when sterile she is made to take medicine in order to produce again. All this is sacrilege.
This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path. We cannot dwell side by side. Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that from us also. My brothers, shall we submit? Or shall we say to them: "First kill me, before you can take possession of my fatherland!”’
An 1883 photograph of Sitting Bull taken by David F. Barry in Bismarck, Dakota Territory
To read from the beginning, you can follow the link:
We also released the latest instalment of the After Hours podcast series about the sex lives of royals. This time we covered Edward VII and all of his privileged ickness when it came to women he boffed. We also included his son George V, and grandson George VI, who were (mercifully) dull in this respect and could not fill their own episodes, but we did discuss his eldest son Eddy and his STDs briefly too. This one is available to listen to here:
Next Week
There’s going to be come bonus podcast content based on an upcoming WW2 anniversary. We’ll also be off to the Eastern Front to look at a nurse tending the wounded during the Brusilov Offensive in 1916, and there’s also a special feature I’ve worked my nuts off for. It’s boaty, one of the bestest boats of all time, and it's WW2, so get signed up in time…
Looking forward to reading the story of the nurse but the boaty feature has me intrigued. Can’t wait to read it.